Summary.   

Managers have tried various strategies and perks to boost employee engagement—all with little impact on long-term retention and performance. But now, neuroscience offers some answers. Through his research on the brain chemical oxytocin—shown to facilitate collaboration and teamwork—Zak has developed a framework for creating a culture of trust and building a happier, more loyal, and more productive workforce.

By measuring people’s oxytocin levels in response to various situations—first in the lab and later in the workplace—Zak identified eight key management behaviors that stimulate oxytocin production and generate trust: (1) Recognize excellence. (2) Induce “challenge stress.” (3) Give people discretion in how they do their work. (4) Enable job crafting. (5) Share information broadly. (6) Intentionally build relationships. (7) Facilitate whole-person growth. (8) Show vulnerability.

Ultimately, Zak concludes, managers can cultivate trust by setting a clear direction, giving people what they need to see it through, and then getting out of their way. In short, to boost engagement, treat people like responsible adults.

Companies are twisting themselves into knots to empower and challenge their employees. They’re anxious about the sad state of engagement, and rightly so, given the value they’re losing. Consider Gallup’s meta-analysis of decades’ worth of data: It shows that high engagement—defined largely as having a strong connection with one’s work and colleagues, feeling like a real contributor, and enjoying ample chances to learn—consistently leads to positive outcomes for both individuals and organizations. The rewards include higher productivity, better-quality products, and increased profitability.

So it’s clear that creating an employee-centric culture can be good for business. But how do you do that effectively? Culture is typically designed in an ad hoc way around random perks like gourmet meals or “karaoke Fridays,” often in thrall to some psychological fad. And despite the evidence that you can’t buy higher job satisfaction, organizations still use golden handcuffs to keep good employees in place. While such efforts might boost workplace happiness in the short term, they fail to have any lasting effect on talent retention or performance.

In my research I’ve found that building a culture of trust is what makes a meaningful difference. Employees in high-trust organizations are more productive, have more energy at work, collaborate better with their colleagues, and stay with their employers longer than people working at low-trust companies. They also suffer less chronic stress and are happier with their lives, and these factors fuel stronger performance.

Leaders understand the stakes—at least in principle. In its 2016 global CEO survey, PwC reported that 55% of CEOs think that a lack of trust is a threat to their organization’s growth. But most have done little to increase trust, mainly because they aren’t sure where to start. In this article I provide a science-based framework that will help them.

About a decade ago, in an effort to understand how company culture affects performance, I began measuring the brain activity of people while they worked. The neuroscience experiments I have run reveal eight ways that leaders can effectively create and manage a culture of trust. I’ll describe those strategies and explain how some organizations are using them to good effect. But first, let’s look at the science behind the framework.

What’s Happening in the Brain

Back in 2001 I derived a mathematical relationship between trust and economic performance. Though my paper on this research described the social, legal, and economic environments that cause differences in trust, I couldn’t answer the most basic question: Why do two people trust each other in the first place? Experiments around the world have shown that humans are naturally inclined to trust others—but don’t always. I hypothesized that there must be a neurologic signal that indicates when we should trust someone. So I started a long-term research program to see if that was true.

How Trust Creates Joy

I knew that in rodents a brain chemical called oxytocin had been shown to signal that another animal was safe to approach. I wondered if that was the case in humans, too. No one had looked into it, so I decided to investigate. To measure trust and its reciprocation (trustworthiness) objectively, my team used a strategic decision task developed by researchers in the lab of Vernon Smith, a Nobel laureate in economics. In our experiment, a participant chooses an amount of money to send to a stranger via computer, knowing that the money will triple in amount and understanding that the recipient may or may not share the spoils. Therein lies the conflict: The recipient can either keep all the cash or be trustworthy and share it with the sender.

To measure oxytocin levels during the exchange, my colleagues and I developed a protocol to draw blood from people’s arms before and immediately after they made decisions to trust others (if they were senders) or to be trustworthy (if they were receivers). Because we didn’t want to influence their behavior, we didn’t tell participants what the study was about, even though there was no way they could consciously control how much oxytocin they produced. We found that the more money people received (denoting greater trust on the part of senders), the more oxytocin their brains produced. And the amount of oxytocin recipients produced predicted how trustworthy—that is, how likely to share the money—they would be.

Since the brain generates messaging chemicals all the time, it was possible we had simply observed random changes in oxytocin. To prove that it causes trust, we safely administered doses of synthetic oxytocin into living human brains (through a nasal spray). Comparing participants who received a real dose with those who received a placebo, we found that giving people 24 IU of synthetic oxytocin more than doubled the amount of money they sent to a stranger. Using a variety of psychological tests, we showed that those receiving oxytocin remained cognitively intact. We also found that they did not take excessive risks in a gambling task, so the increase in trust was not due to neural disinhibition. Oxytocin appeared to do just one thing—reduce the fear of trusting a stranger.

My group then spent the next 10 years running additional experiments to identify the promoters and inhibitors of oxytocin. This research told us why trust varies across individuals and situations. For example, high stress is a potent oxytocin inhibitor. (Most people intuitively know this: When they are stressed out, they do not interact with others effectively.) We also discovered that oxytocin increases a person’s empathy, a useful trait for social creatures trying to work together. We were starting to develop insights that could be used to design high-trust cultures, but to confirm them, we had to get out of the lab.

So we obtained permission to run experiments at numerous field sites where we measured oxytocin and stress hormones and then assessed employees’ productivity and ability to innovate. This research even took me to the rain forest of Papua New Guinea, where I measured oxytocin in indigenous people to see if the relationship between oxytocin and trust is universal. (It is.) Drawing on all these findings, I created a survey instrument that quantifies trust within organizations by measuring its constituent factors (described in the next section). That survey has allowed me to study several thousand companies and develop a framework for managers.

How to Manage for Trust

Through the experiments and the surveys, I identified eight management behaviors that foster trust. These behaviors are measurable and can be managed to improve performance.

Recognize excellence.

The neuroscience shows that recognition has the largest effect on trust when it occurs immediately after a goal has been met, when it comes from peers, and when it’s tangible, unexpected, personal, and public. Public recognition not only uses the power of the crowd to celebrate successes, but also inspires others to aim for excellence. And it gives top performers a forum for sharing best practices, so others can learn from them.

Barry-Wehmiller Companies, a supplier of manufacturing and technology services, is a high-trust organization that effectively recognizes top performers in the 80 production-automation manufacturers it owns. CEO Bob Chapman and his team started a program in which employees at each plant nominate an outstanding peer annually. The winner is kept secret until announced to everyone, and the facility is closed on the day of the celebration. The chosen employee’s family and close friends are invited to attend (without tipping off the winner), and the entire staff joins them. Plant leaders kick off the ceremony by reading the nominating letters about the winner’s contributions and bring it to a close with a favorite perk—the keys to a sports car the winner gets to drive for a week. Though the recognition isn’t immediate, it is tangible, unexpected, and both personal and public. And by having employees help pick the winners, Barry-Wehmiller gives everyone, not just the people at the top, a say in what constitutes excellence. All this seems to be working well for the company: It has grown from a single plant in 1987 to a conglomerate that brings in $2.4 billion in annual revenue today.

Induce “challenge stress.”

When a manager assigns a team a difficult but achievable job, the moderate stress of the task releases neurochemicals, including oxytocin and adrenocorticotropin, that intensify people’s focus and strengthen social connections. When team members need to work together to reach a goal, brain activity coordinates their behaviors efficiently. But this works only if challenges are attainable and have a concrete end point; vague or impossible goals cause people to give up before they even start. Leaders should check in frequently to assess progress and adjust goals that are too easy or out of reach.

The need for achievability is reinforced by Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile’s findings on the power of progress: When Amabile analyzed 12,000 diary entries of employees from a variety of industries, she found that 76% of people reported that their best days involved making progress toward goals.

Give people discretion in how they do their work.

Once employees have been trained, allow them, whenever possible, to manage people and execute projects in their own way. Being trusted to figure things out is a big motivator: A 2014 Citigroup and LinkedIn survey found that nearly half of employees would give up a 20% raise for greater control over how they work.

Autonomy also promotes innovation, because different people try different approaches. Oversight and risk management procedures can help minimize negative deviations while people experiment. And postproject debriefs allow teams to share how positive deviations came about so that others can build on their success.

Often, younger or less experienced employees will be your chief innovators, because they’re less constrained by what “usually” works. That’s how progress was made in self-driving cars. After five years and a significant investment by the U.S. government in the big three auto manufacturers, no autonomous military vehicles had been produced. Changing tack, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency offered all comers a large financial prize for a self-driving car that could complete a course in the Mojave Desert in less than 10 hours. Two years later a group of engineering students from Stanford University won the challenge—and $2 million.

Enable job crafting.

When companies trust employees to choose which projects they’ll work on, people focus their energies on what they care about most. As a result, organizations like the Morning Star Company—the largest producer of tomato products in the world—have highly productive colleagues who stay with the company year after year. At Morning Star (a company I’ve worked with), people don’t even have job titles; they self-organize into work groups. Gaming software company Valve gives employees desks on wheels and encourages them to join projects that seem “interesting” and “rewarding.” But they’re still held accountable. Clear expectations are set when employees join a new group, and 360-degree evaluations are done when projects wrap up, so that individual contributions can be measured.

Share information broadly.

Only 40% of employees report that they are well informed about their company’s goals, strategies, and tactics. This uncertainty about the company’s direction leads to chronic stress, which inhibits the release of oxytocin and undermines teamwork. Openness is the antidote. Organizations that share their “flight plans” with employees reduce uncertainty about where they are headed and why. Ongoing communication is key: A 2015 study of 2.5 million manager-led teams in 195 countries found that workforce engagement improved when supervisors had some form of daily communication with direct reports.

Social media optimization company Buffer goes further than most by posting its salary formula online for everyone to see. Want to know what CEO Joel Gascoigne makes? Just look it up. That’s openness.

Intentionally build relationships.

The brain network that oxytocin activates is evolutionarily old. This means that the trust and sociality that oxytocin enables are deeply embedded in our nature. Yet at work we often get the message that we should focus on completing tasks, not on making friends. Neuroscience experiments by my lab show that when people intentionally build social ties at work, their performance improves. A Google study similarly found that managers who “express interest in and concern for team members’ success and personal well-being” outperform others in the quality and quantity of their work.

Yes, even engineers need to socialize. A study of software engineers in Silicon Valley found that those who connected with others and helped them with their projects not only earned the respect and trust of their peers but were also more productive themselves. You can help people build social connections by sponsoring lunches, after-work parties, and team-building activities. It may sound like forced fun, but when people care about one another, they perform better because they don’t want to let their teammates down. Adding a moderate challenge to the mix (white-water rafting counts) will speed up the social-bonding process.

Facilitate whole-person growth.

High-trust workplaces help people develop personally as well as professionally. Numerous studies show that acquiring new work skills isn’t enough; if you’re not growing as a human being, your performance will suffer. High-trust companies adopt a growth mindset when developing talent. Some even find that when managers set clear goals, give employees the autonomy to reach them, and provide consistent feedback, the backward-looking annual performance review is no longer necessary. Instead, managers and direct reports can meet more frequently to focus on professional and personal growth. This is the approach taken by Accenture and Adobe Systems. Managers can ask questions like, “Am I helping you get your next job?” to probe professional goals. Assessing personal growth includes discussions about work-life integration, family, and time for recreation and reflection. Investing in the whole person has a powerful effect on engagement and retention.

Show vulnerability.

Leaders in high-trust workplaces ask for help from colleagues instead of just telling them to do things. My research team has found that this stimulates oxytocin production in others, increasing their trust and cooperation. Asking for help is a sign of a secure leader—one who engages everyone to reach goals. Jim Whitehurst, CEO of open-source software maker Red Hat, has said, “I found that being very open about the things I did not know actually had the opposite effect than I would have thought. It helped me build credibility.” Asking for help is effective because it taps into the natural human impulse to cooperate with others.

The Return on Trust

After identifying and measuring the managerial behaviors that sustain trust in organizations, my team and I tested the impact of trust on business performance. We did this in several ways. First, we gathered evidence from a dozen companies that have launched policy changes to raise trust (most were motivated by a slump in their profits or market share). Second, we conducted the field experiments mentioned earlier: In two businesses where trust varies by department, my team gave groups of employees specific tasks, gauged their productivity and innovation in those tasks, and gathered very detailed data—including direct measures of brain activity—showing that trust improves performance. And third, with the help of an independent survey firm, we collected data in February 2016 from a nationally representative sample of 1,095 working adults in the U.S. The findings from all three sources were similar, but I will focus on what we learned from the national data since it’s generalizable.

By surveying the employees about the extent to which firms practiced the eight behaviors, we were able to calculate the level of trust for each organization. (To avoid priming respondents, we never used the word “trust” in surveys.) The U.S. average for organizational trust was 70% (out of a possible 100%). Fully 47% of respondents worked in organizations where trust was below the average, with one firm scoring an abysmally low 15%. Overall, companies scored lowest on recognizing excellence and sharing information (67% and 68%, respectively). So the data suggests that the average U.S. company could enhance trust by improving in these two areas—even if it didn’t improve in the other six.

The effect of trust on self-reported work performance was powerful. Respondents whose companies were in the top quartile indicated they had 106% more energy and were 76% more engaged at work than respondents whose firms were in the bottom quartile. They also reported being 50% more productive—which is consistent with our objective measures of productivity from studies we have done with employees at work. Trust had a major impact on employee loyalty as well: Compared with employees at low-trust companies, 50% more of those working at high-trust organizations planned to stay with their employer over the next year, and 88% more said they would recommend their company to family and friends as a place to work.

My team also found that those working in high-trust companies enjoyed their jobs 60% more, were 70% more aligned with their companies’ purpose, and felt 66% closer to their colleagues. And a high-trust culture improves how people treat one another and themselves. Compared with employees at low-trust organizations, the high-trust folks had 11% more empathy for their workmates, depersonalized them 41% less often, and experienced 40% less burnout from their work. They felt a greater sense of accomplishment, as well—41% more.

Again, this analysis supports the findings from our qualitative and scientific studies. But one new—and surprising—thing we learned is that high-trust companies pay more. Employees earn an additional $6,450 a year, or 17% more, at companies in the highest quartile of trust, compared with those in the lowest quartile. The only way this can occur in a competitive labor market is if employees in high-trust companies are more productive and innovative.

CONCLUSION

Former Herman Miller CEO Max De Pree once said, “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant.”

The experiments I have run strongly support this view. Ultimately, you cultivate trust by setting a clear direction, giving people what they need to see it through, and getting out of their way.

It’s not about being easy on your employees or expecting less from them. High-trust companies hold people accountable but without micromanaging them. They treat people like responsible adults.

Paul J. Zak is the founding director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies and a professor of economics, psychology, and management at Claremont Graduate University, and the CEO of Immersion Neuroscience. He is the author of Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies.

Summary – As professionals around the world feel increasingly pressed for time, they’re giving up on things that matter to them. A recent HBR article noted that in surveys, most people “could name several activities, such as pursuing a hobby, that they’d like to have time for.” This is more significant than it may sound, because it isn’t just individuals who are missing out. When people don’t have time for hobbies, businesses pay a price. Hobbies can make employees substantially better at their jobs for three reasons: they reawaken your creativity, give you a fresh perspective, and bolster your confidence.

Stressed. Anxious. Exhausted. Drained. This is how many employees feel at work due to stressors like longer work hours, more-frequent hassles, the need to do more with fewer resources, and so on. Such work stress has been shown to induce anxiety and anger, unethical behavior, poor decision making, and chronic exhaustion and burnout — all of which impair personal and organizational performance.

There are typically two ways people try to deal with this stress. One is to simply “buckle down and power through” — to focus on getting the stressful work done. Professional workers often have a “bias for action” and want to find a solution quickly; and they pride themselves on being tough people who can keep working despite feeling stressed and fatigued.

The other common tactic is to retreat — to temporarily disconnect from work and get away from the stressful environment. Research on workday breaks has grown rapidly in the past few years, finding that relaxing and engaging breaks can improve emotions and boost energy at work. This helps explain why “relaxation facilities,” such as nap rooms, workout equipment, and entertainment zones are becoming popular offerings at companies in knowledge-intensive industries.

Unfortunately, both “grinding through” and “getting away” have potential pitfalls. Research has long established that we humans have limits in handling heavy workloads, which restrict our ability to always grind through. Continuing to exert effort while stressed and fatigued will simply tax us and lead to depletion and impaired performance. And while a reprieve from work can provide temporary relief, it does not address the underlying problems that cause stress in the first place. When we return from a break, we are not only faced with the same issues, but we may also experience additional guilt and anxiety.

So what else can employees do to temper the ill effects of stress? Our research suggests a third option: focusing on learning. This can mean picking up a new skill, gathering new information, or seeking out intellectual challenges. In two recent research projects, one with employees from a variety of industries and organizations, and the other with medical residents, we found evidence that engaging in learning activities can buffer workers from detrimental effects of stress including negative emotions, unethical behavior, and burnout.

We investigated learning as a stress buffer because learning helps workers build valuable instrumental and psychological resources. Instrumentally, learning brings us new information and knowledge that can be useful for solving near-term stressful problems; it also equips us with new skills and capabilities to address or even prevent future stressors. Psychologically, taking time to reflect on what we know and learn new things helps us develop feelings of competence and self-efficacy (a sense of being capable of achieving goals and doing more). Learning also helps connect us to an underlying purpose of growth and development. This way, we can see ourselves as constantly improving and developing, rather than being stuck with fixed capabilities. These psychological resources enable us to build resilience in the face of stressors.

Evidence of Learning as a Tool to Ease Stress

In two complementary studies, two of us (Chen and Dave, with Eunbit Hwang) studied more than 300 U.S. employees from various organizations and industries regarding their job stressors and behavior at work. Prior research has established that in the face of stress people tend to engage in unethical behavior at work (e.g., stealing, falsifying time sheets, or being rude to co-workers), so we examined employees’ learning new things or relaxing at work as two potential remedies for this conundrum. The first study used daily surveys to track employees’ feelings and activities at work over two weeks; and the second study used paired survey responses to link employees’ activities and feelings with what their supervisors observed. In both studies, employees reported the extent to which they engaged in learning activities at work (e.g., doing things to broaden their horizons, seeking out intellectual challenges, or learning something new), as well as their relaxation activities at work (e.g., taking some time to kick back, take a walk, or surf the web).

The first study revealed that, in the face of stress, employees experienced fewer negative emotions (e.g., anxiety, distress) and engaged in less unethical behavior (e.g., taking company property, being mean to coworkers) on days when they engaged in more learning activities at work compared to other days.  Similarly, in the second study, these benefits were more common among employees who reported taking on more learning activities at work than other people.

In contrast, relaxing activities did not buffer the detrimental consequences of stress — employees experienced the same levels of negative emotions and engaged in just as much unethical behavior on days when they took on more relaxing activities at work, compared to other days (study 1), and when they generally focused on relaxation more than others (study 2). Relaxation thus did not appear to be as useful a stress buffer as learning was.

The buffering effects of learning were further illustrated in a study one of us (Chris, with Heather Sateia and Sanjay Desai) conducted with medical residents, whose jobs involve the stressful task of caring for patients with critical conditions while working long hours with little rest or reprieve. In response to the growing issue of physician burnout, we surveyed approximately 80 internal medicine residents at Johns Hopkins University to better understand the relationships between their work behaviors and burnout. Our analysis revealed that residents who thought their team engaged in more learning behavior (such as seeking out new information or reflecting on the team’s work process) reported significantly lower levels of burnout. This correlation between team learning and reduced burnout was especially pronounced for residents who reported lower levels of learning goal orientation—meaning these residents were not already approaching their work with an eye towards learning. This suggests that being part of a team where others are learning may also help buffer the detrimental effects of stressful, challenging work, even (or perhaps especially) for those who may not be as inclined to focus on learning themselves.

Strategically Using Learning at Work

What specifically can you do to increase learning when faced with stress at work?

First, start internally. Practice re-reframing stressful work challenges in your mind. When stress emerges, change the message you tell yourself from “this is a stressful work assignment/situation” to “this is a challenging but rewarding opportunity to learn.” Reframing stressful tasks as learning possibilities shifts your mindset and better prepares you to approach the task with an orientation toward growth and longer-term gains.

Second, work and learn with others. Instead of wrestling with a stressful challenge solely in your own head, try to get input from others. Getting out and discussing a stressor with your peers and colleagues might reveal hidden insights, either from their experience or from the questions and perspectives they raise.

Third, craft learning activities as a new form of “work break.” Alongside purely relaxing breaks — either short ones like meditating or longer ones like taking days off — consider recasting learning itself as a break from your routine tasks at work. This might seem like a mere mental rebranding, but if a learning activity allows you to divert from the type of effort you use in regular work activities (e.g., numeric thinking, interacting with clients), and if the activity also fits your intrinsic interests, it can replenish you psychologically. Viewing learning as “more work” will make it less attractive in an already stressful situation, but approaching it as a form of respite can make it more appealing and more likely to create positive, enjoyable experiences.

Embracing learning can be a more active way to buffer yourself from negative effects of stress at work. At the same time, there is no need to wait for stress to arise before seeking learning opportunities. Even without pressing problems, engaging in learning as a central feature of your work life will help you build personal resources and equip you to be resilient and prepared in navigating future stress at work.

Chen Zhang is an assistant professor of Leadership and Organization Management at Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management. Her research explores time, energy, and well-being issues at work, as well as individuals’ proactive actions in organizations.

Christopher G. Myers is an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University on the faculty of the Carey Business School, School of Medicine, and Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety & Quality. His research explores interpersonal processes of learning, development, and innovation in health care and other knowledge-intensive work environments. Follow him @ChrisGMyers.

David M. Mayer is a professor of management and organizations at the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business, where he focuses on leadership, ethics, and diversity. Follow him on Twitter @DaveMMayer.

Summary.   

As a manager how do you help people manage their return-to-work anxiety? Should you be nudging them to return if that’s what your company’s leadership wants? And if they’re worried that their career will be impacted if they need to keep working from home, should you assure them it won’t? This is uncharted territory for all us, especially managers. The author reached out to several experts who study the role of middle managers and compassion at work to ask what they’d advise.

As vaccines roll out across the globe, more and more offices are opening up — or making plans to in the near future. That’s good news for people who are eager to get back to their desks. But what about people who are anxious about returning to in-person work, or (like me) feel conflicted? Maybe they have health issues that would put them at risk (even with broad vaccine adoption). Or they’ve got caretaking responsibilities that prevent them from going in. Perhaps they’ve found that they’re happier and more productive working at home, or they had a long commute they’re content to no longer endure.

As a manager how do you help people manage their return-to-work anxiety? Should you be nudging them to return if that’s what your company’s leadership wants? And if they’re worried that their career will be impacted if they need to keep working from home, should you assure them it won’t?

This is uncharted territory for all us, especially managers. So I reached out to several experts who study the role of middle managers and compassion at work to ask what they’d advise.

They all agree that there are, of course, upsides and downsides for everyone. As Jane Dutton, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and coauthor of Awakening Compassion at Work, says, “For some people, the return to routines and seeing colleagues can be very healing.” And for others, they just aren’t ready.

As a manager, you may feel stuck. As Jacob Hirsh, an associate professor at University of Toronto, explains, “The challenge of a middle manager is to manage employee concerns about directions from upper management,” so you may not be making the call about if, when, how often your team members come in, which makes the situation even trickier.

Fortunately, there are several things you can do.

Find out how people are feeling — anonymously, if necessary.

It’ll be far easier to navigate all of this and help those who are worried if you know how people on your team feel. You can’t assume that your employees will tell you if they’re feeling anxious about reentry, warns Linda Hill, a professor at Harvard Business School and author of Being the Boss. “People are fearful of looking weak or not living up to expectations,” she says. Therefore, you need to make it safe for people to speak up. Hill suggests using anonymous surveys (assuming your team is big enough) to ask how employees view the return.

Then use the insights you glean to address people’s concerns. For example, if several people mentioned health considerations in your surveys, you can make sure that the team knows precisely what precautions the company is taking to keep staff safe or you can lobby senior leaders to put more preparations in place. As Hill says, “Help them understand as best as you can what you’ve done to make it safe — based on science.” Or say there are employees who prefer working from home because they find they’re able to focus better without interruptions. Talk directly to your team about how to minimize distractions no matter where they’re working.

The point, Dutton says, is to “make them feel heard.” If you ask people to share what they’re nervous about, respond directly to whatever they raise so they know you’re listening and taking their preferences and anxieties seriously.

Allow for ambivalence about returning.

When people share their concerns – either openly or anonymously — make sure you allow for people to have mixed and complex feelings. It’s tempting to be positive about the upcoming changes as a way to assuage worries, but you risk making people feel dismissed, or you might inadvertently pressure them to hide their negative feelings.

Brianna Caza, an associate professor University of North Carolina at Greensboro, studies emotional ambivalence and how managers can use it to help people build resilience. “We all have positive and negative emotions — usually at the same time,” says Caza. Managers often feel pressure to respond to these emotions, and even help people resolve them — they might encourage people who are struggling to “look on the bright side,” for example. Or they may inadvertently dismiss negative emotions as complaining. But Caza’s research with Lehigh University’s Naomi Rothman has shown that a better path might be for managers to lean into the emotional ambivalence, making it okay to have mixed feelings. “Leaders who model ambivalence can create a culture where people adapt and pivot more easily,” Caza told me.

This may be especially true of the anxieties your team members feel about coming back. It’s unlikely each person feels absolutely thrilled or completely despondent so encourage people to express both positive and negative emotions and don’t force a tidy resolution to those feelings.

Offer flexibility, if possible.

If at all possible, at least at the beginning of your office’s reopening, give people some options about when and how often they come in. As Dutton says, “The message should be one of flexibility, flexibility, flexibility,” especially given what everyone has been through over the past year. “There have been many sources of pain, not just the pandemic but also the struggle around racial justice and politics,” she says. “We can’t assume we know how traumatizing it’s been for people.”

Being flexible isn’t just about being kind and compassionate; it’s also about maintaining productivity and retaining people. “The psychological contract with people is fragile right now,” Dutton says, “If you’re too forceful, you risk breaking that contract and engagement could plummet.” A recent survey found that 58% of people say they would “absolutely look for a new job if they weren’t allowed to continue working remotely in their current position.” Of the more than 2,000 respondents, 65% wanted to work remotely full-time post-pandemic, and another 33% prefer a hybrid work arrangement.

Mandates may have the opposite effect than intended. “You’re not going to get what you want if you’re basically roping people into the office,” says Hirsh. “A rush to establish the old normal doesn’t make sense and is going to cause friction.” The resulting loss of psychological safety and increase in stress will take a hit on productivity and team camaraderie — which is likely one of the motivations to get people back in anyway.

Explain the “why.”

When people have to do something they feel anxious about, it can help to know there’s a good reason behind it. If the senior leaders at your company haven’t clearly articulated why it’s important people come back to the office, you may need to fill that gap. “Communicate the vision from upper management so employees see it as reasonable and can get out on board. If they don’t buy in, it’s going to feel like coercion,” says Hirsh. “What’s the value proposition for going back in? What is in it for the employees? Will they strengthen their relationships with their coworkers? Will it lessen work-life conflicts if there are clearer boundaries? It can be perceived as a loss so reframe it as to what they will gain.”

You also want to make sure that your team knows this wasn’t a decision made haphazardly. “They need to see that there’s a competent and well-thought-out plan,” Hirsh says. And that plan should consider their needs. Make the connection between the expectations for the return and the concerns they’ve shared with you, for example saying something like, “We understand that some of you have reservations and those make sense. To address those, we’ve…”. Again, you want people to feel heard and considered.

Consider experiments and pilot programs.

Some people may be hesitant because they’re just not sure what to expect or how they’ll feel. And a transition back to five days a week at the office may feel sudden, like turning on a light switch. To avoid overwhelming employees, and to help them ease into a different way of working, consider running pilot programs or letting people experiment individually. As Hirsh says, “Baby steps are a good idea,” especially for those who have concerns. The message may be: “We’re going to try this out and see what we learn.” Then make sure you ask for feedback along the way so you can understand what’s working and what isn’t.

This approach can be used on an individual basis too for an employee who is particularly anxious. You might suggest they try going in one day a week for several weeks and then you can check in to see how it went and troubleshoot issues they still have. Whenever possible, give the accommodations people need to do their best work. That is the ultimate goal, after all.

Don’t make promises you can’t keep.  

In navigating all of this, you may be tempted to tell hesitant employees that the office is completely safe or reassure those who aren’t ready to come back in that their careers won’t be affected, but be careful not to make promises you can’t keep. As Hill points out, it’s unlikely that you can say with 100% certainty that coming to the office has “zero risk” from a health perspective for every employee. And you want to be realistic about the career impacts for those who continue to work from home, especially if the majority of staff are back at work. Be honest about the potential drawbacks, especially given your company’s unique culture. “Will employees have fewer opportunities to network? Will their work be less visible? That’s possible and you shouldn’t pretend otherwise,” says Hill. “You can’t always guarantee that it won’t have an impact on their career.”

Similarly, don’t tell people on your team that you’ll be able to make accommodations without confirming with senior leaders and HR first. As we’ve all learned over the past year, circumstances are likely to evolve and while it may be okay for someone to choose to work from home right now, that may change later. In an attempt to retain key staff, you may be tempted to guarantee that they can work from home as long as they want, but that simply may not be true. So be realistic and straightforward with your team.

Be compassionate.

No matter what messages you have to deliver, what accommodations you can and can’t make, and what policies you may have to enforce, do it all with compassion. It’s often an antidote to anxiety. Dutton points to research done in health care settings that showed that a compassionate interaction between a doctor and a patient lasting as little as 40 seconds had a measurable effect on patient anxiety and health outcomes.

“Find small ways to be present for your people,” Dutton says. Continue to ask about how they’re doing and what else they have going on besides work. Talk about what you’re going through to make it okay for them to do the same. Keep an eye out for signs of burnout and stress, especially as their work schedule changes.

Let’s be honest: Most good managers have been doing this since the pandemic started and are likely exhausted from the additional responsibility of caring for their team members’ wellbeing during such an intense time. “Compassion fatigue is real,” says Dutton. That’s why it’s critical that you are taking care of yourself — not just your team members. Watch yourself for symptoms of burnout and take mental health breaks when you need them. One upside to this aspect of your job, says Dutton, is that research has shown that being compassionate also “lifts up the giver” so “you may both be strengthened through this way of being.”

One of the small silver linings of the pandemic is that it’s become more acceptable — in many places — to talk about mental health at work. Just because many of us are going back to the office shouldn’t mean that the conversation and compassion around this topic should stop. As a manager, it’s important to remember that you may not know or appreciate the full picture of what your employees have been through or continue to go through. As a friend recently told me, “No vaccine is going to take away the grief and trauma that we’ve all experienced.” Keep that in mind when helping your employees make their way back into the office.

Key Takeaways

Do:

• Ask — anonymously, if necessary — how people are feeling about returning to the office so you can respond directly to their concerns.
• Allow people to experiment with different ways of working so the shift to in-person or hybrid work doesn’t feel sudden.
• Continue to be compassionate — to your team members, and to yourself.

Don’t:

• Assume people are going to tell you that they’re feeling anxious
• Neglect to make clear why in-person or hybrid work is beneficial to employees (not just to the company)
• Make promises you can’t keep, such as assuring people their careers won’t be impacted by working from home or that they can do so indefinitely

Amy Gallo is a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review and the author of the HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict. She writes and speaks about workplace dynamics. Watch her TEDx talk on conflict and follow her on Twitter at @amyegallo.